Exhibition The Ghosts of the Louvre. Enki Bilal

Enki Bilal went to the Louvre... There, he photographed hundreds of the museum’s treasures, often from original vantage points and unusual perspectives. He chose 23 of the resulting photographs, and printed them on canvases measuring 50 x 60 cm. And finally, on each of those 23 prints, with acrylic and pastel… he summoned up a ghost.

Bilal’s ghosts include those of a Roman soldier, a muse, a painter, a German officer… men, women and children who died long ago, often meeting a violent end. Now they wander the Louvre, hovering near the place or work of art that changed the course of their lives—the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a recumbent Christ, an Egyptian bust, the Alcove Bedchamber… The artist conjures up these evanescent, wandering souls with a delicacy that belies their forceful presence. And he recounts their life stories in dramatic biographies that combine fiction and historical reality, often evoking the creation of the works in question.

Bilal’s paintings will be presented in the Louvre’s prestigious Salle des Sept-Cheminées—an extraordinary exhibition for a powerfully haunting work.